


Like leaves who could write a history of leaves

by Silence89



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Eliot is fine, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Immortal Eliot Spencer, Not Really Character Death, OT3, Other, Post-Canon, Pre-OT3, Weird Use of Tenses, eliot doing jazz hands, happy endings, parker doing jazz hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-21 07:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silence89/pseuds/Silence89
Summary: The day Eliot died was the worst—and best—day of Hardison's life.(Eliot insists he doesn't do that.)





	1. Chapter 1

The day Eliot died was the worst—and best—day of Hardison's life.

The  _worst_  part was obvious. Even given what came later.

It happened fast—a few seconds? A minute? It couldn’t have been more than that, Hardison knows.

Later, in the nightmares he tries to hide, time slows to a crawl. Hardison watches it happen from a thousand different angles, measures the blood and marks the surprise on the kid's face, on Parker's face, even on Eliot's.

In the moment, though.

Then, what he mostly caught was the sound. He forgets how loud guns are, every time. The sound hit him like a slap, echoing and amplifying off the cement walls of the parking garage, and he stumbled, and so did Eliot. 

He couldn't have heard Eliot hitting the ground. His subconscious fills that in, in the dreams. The little exhaled  _oof_ , the hand coming up to break his fall. That heavy thud. Those are reconstructions.

The day it happened, it was the sound of the gun and Parker's mouth twisting and the quick turn to Eliot, still trying to get up and get back to the fight. Then Parker stepped forward with the tire iron and the kid's eyes widened, not at her but at Eliot, at what he'd done, and he was running and Hardison's ears were ringing and Eliot hadn't stood up.

Eliot insists he told them not to worry, that it was going to be okay. He says Hardison was too busy panicking to listen. 

Hardison is 100 percent sure that's bullshit.

Eliot didn't have any last words at all, not even in Hardison's dreams. Not a clever one-liner. Not some kind of soothing reassurance (not that it would have worked anyway, that anything would have worked). Just that stupid look of frustrated surprise.

Just that.

Hardison couldn’t hear Parker over the ringing in his ears, could only feel his own sobbing breaths and Eliot’s terrible stillness. So it took him a while to understand why she was shaking his arm. 

“Help me,” she yelled. “We have to get him to the van.”

A gust of wind from the upper level caught at her hair, blowing it sideways and obscuring her lips. She brushed it aside and repeated herself.

“I can’t lift him by myself, Alec.”

“What?” Hardison yelled back. “Parker, he’s—he’s gone. Eliot’s gone.”

A leaf, carried by the wind, plastered itself against Eliot’s face. Hardison ripped it off with a shudder.

“We can’t leave him here,” Parker said. She wasn’t quite yelling this time. Hardison’s hearing was starting to recover.

Another gust of wind, stronger, pushed Hardison back on his heels, away from the—away from Eliot. He pushed against it and pulled Eliot into almost a sitting position against his chest. Eliot’s head slipped sideways, and as Hardison fumbled automatically, pointlessly, to support his neck, he felt stubble graze against his arm. Eliot’s cheek was still as warm as life.

The kid must have propped open an exit door somehow on his way out, because the wind picked up again as they struggled toward the rental, slowing their steps and forcing Hardison to grip Eliot’s arms like he was just cargo, a poorly balanced load. Dead weight.

By the time the two of them got Eliot into the van, Hardison could hear sirens over the now-faint ringing in his ears.

Parker slammed past him to the front seat, and again Hardison reached out instinctively to support Eliot as the van slammed into motion.

Eliot’s eyes were still open.

Hardison brushed the hair from Eliot’s face. There was a bubble of blood at the corner of his mouth, so Hardison pulled a tissue from his pocket and cleaned it off. There was nothing he could do about Eliot’s chest. God, there was nothing he could do. He zipped Eliot’s jacket, hiding the worst of it.

Parker rounded the corner to the exit on two wheels, and Eliot’s head slipped sideways again.

“Damn it,” Hardison said, softly. “Eliot. You can’t just.”

He stopped and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. The sirens got louder, and the van cornered again.

Parker would tell him later how close it had been, the cops pulling in as they approached the intersection, another gust of wind—a goddamned gale—slamming the side of the van, spinning it toward the alley.

“One second slower and they’d have been on us,” she says. “I didn’t pick the route; I was just turning into the spin.”

Eliot never has much to say to that. He doesn’t like talking about any of this, really. When he has to, he snaps too much or cracks jokes that strain at the seams. They always let him change the subject.

Hardison missed the action again, only registering the jerk of the van and the way it slowed, merging with traffic. He wondered, vaguely, where they were going, but he didn’t ask. He reached out again, brushed his fingers along Eliot’s face. Carefully, he shut Eliot’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

Parker took them across the state line before she stopped the van. They must need gas, the calculating part of Hardison pointed out. They couldn’t go to a gas station, not with blood on their clothes. They’d stand out.

“What do we do now?” Parker asked. She was petting Eliot’s hair, smoothing it down like she did sometimes when Eliot fell asleep on their couch.

He didn’t look much like he was sleeping.

They should have let the cops find him, Hardison realized. They could have claimed him after. Now he was going to have to fake the paperwork before they could find a funeral home. He was going to have to figure out what paperwork he was even supposed to fake. A bribe might do it. But he couldn’t leave Eliot with the kind of shady mortician who’d take a bribe.

He couldn’t leave Eliot at all.

“We have to call Nate and Sophie,” Parker said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. She leaned back against the wall of the van, eyes on Eliot.

“Yeah,” Hardison agreed. He took Eliot’s hand, trying not to notice how cool it was, then leaned back next to Parker. She rested her hand on his, touching Eliot’s hand delicately at first, then tighter.

“Nate will know what to do,” Parker said, pulling her knees to her chest.

Eliot would have growled at them to keep moving, to be practical. He’d know how to deal with a—he’d know what to do next. He’d make Hardison do the work, of course, acting like he didn’t even know how much effort went in to the logistics of covering their tracks, setting up fake funerals or—or graves. He’d be impatient.

Eliot’s hand didn’t feel real, or no—it felt too real. It just didn’t feel like Eliot. Hardison set it down, tucking it gently at Eliot’s side.

They listened to the wind. Sometimes they talked, to each other or even to Eliot. Little things. Practical questions mostly—they were indeed low on gas, and parked at a national forest trailhead. The kind of place Eliot would like, Parker said.

It was dark when Hardison stretched and popped the door to the van.

Hardison breathed in the pine scent of the forest and looked around. The dome light of the rented van carried just far enough to impede his night vision, but at least he could see there were no other cars.

He took a few steps down the trail, pulling his phone out and turning on the flashlight. Then he stared at the phone and turned the light back off, pulling up his contacts.

The night wasn’t still. A cool breeze was blowing the scent of the woods to Hardison, making him shiver. He lowered the phone, not bothering to turn on the light again. He had to tell them. They were family too.

He just. He couldn’t, yet. 

It was easier out here. Not easy. But he could pretend Eliot was near, out of sight in the trees. Maybe grinning that feral grin he’d had the last time they’d gone to the woods together. 

He shifted, and a stick cracked under his foot. Eliot would be making fun the amount of noise he was making. Hardison could almost hear the grumbling, if he let himself. It was going to be like that forever, he realized. No matter where he went or what he did, Eliot was going to be there, a sarcastic ghost in the back of his head. He hoped so, anyway. 

“Probably get ate by a wolf or something, out here without you,” he told the empty air. He waited for Eliot’s silent commentary, then took another step down the trail, toying with the phone in his hands. He had to make the call. What was supposed to happen after that, Hardison didn’t know or care.

“Maybe we both will,” he said. “Me and Parker. If you ain’t here to scare it off or whatever you do. Growl at it, probably.”

As if on cue, something rustled in the undergrowth. Hardison took a quick step back, then stood, surprised at his own reflexes. He hadn’t realized he cared about survival, right then.

“Are you okay?” Parker called from the van. Her voice was hoarse from crying. 

“No.” 

A pause. 

“Me neither,” Parker said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He isn’t supposed to die.” 

She’d have sounded indignant, if she hadn’t sounded so tired. 

Hardison couldn’t answer. Eliot was dead, and there was no _supposed to_ about it.

At the same time…This was always how it was going to end, and something in him knew it, had known it for a long time. Not the details—the parking garage and the panicked kid, Eliot’s fatal hesitation, this creepy forest. But the gist.

Eliot was always going to leave them this way. He’d promised it, face full of love and defiance, and even then the thrill of happiness that ran through Hardison at Eliot’s words had carried a tinge of fear.

He’d pushed it away, like an idiot. He should have—should have done so many things differently. Gone on a fishing trip. Watched more football. Taken that rodeo job. Covered Eliot in armor, protected him. Made the three of them new identities and run off to Bolivia. Held Eliot close and never let go. All that and more.

Too late.

Hardison lifted the phone again, hesitated. 

He took another half dozen steps down the trail, then stopped. No point getting lost. He couldn’t spare Parker’s sharp ears from hearing the call. He couldn’t spare Parker from any of this. But he couldn’t look at Eliot while he said it either. 

He turned his back on the van and raised the phone. Lowered it. Looked back one more time. 

“For morale,” he said. 

He turned his back on the van again. 

The dreams almost never get this far. Mostly Hardison wakes fresh from the parking garage, still feeling Eliot’s head flop loose against his arm. Some nights it’s that endless day in the van, the three—two—of them sitting, waiting for the world to right itself and knowing it won’t happen. 

Most nights Hardison’s lost in it, wakes choking on a grief so deep he’s pretty sure despair would be a step up. 

He’s learning to live with it. It ain’t like it’s every night, anymore. Most nights when he wakes like that, he doesn’t have to go far, only has to reach out or take a walk down the hall and there they are, Parker and Eliot, breathing, safe, whole. Hardison’s spine goes limp with the relief of it, every time.

Other nights, one or both of them are gone. He’ll find them on the roof, or in the garden, or the gym.

Or he won’t. Those are the bad nights. The waiting nights.

It’d be easier if reality felt a little more solid, but his memory of what happened next is a vague, tricky thing, changing with every recollection. And it’s so much less likely than that middle-of-the-night grief.

Sometimes he gets lucky, and the dreams are lucid. Hardison knows what’s coming before it happens—though never in time to stop it; he’s tried. He’s given up on that. These days, he tries to make the dream last. If it feels like a dream when he’s awake, he reasons, then it’ll feel real when he’s asleep. He pushes himself again and again, reliving the grief. He’s going to make it to the end, one of these nights. It will be worth it.

In the meantime, all he has is memory, shock-stained and muddled and full of quick cuts and disjointed thoughts.

He called Nate, got his voicemail, then couldn’t think of what to say. After an awkward pause, he managed, “It’s me. Call me as soon as you get this. It’s—”

Something exploded out of the brush.

Hardison jumped and, he admits, may have called out in surprise, just a little. In a manly way.

Parker says he screamed like a girl in a teen horror movie, but she just says that to make Eliot smile.

Anyway, something huge came flying out the brush, low and fast and aiming _right for him._ Anyone would react to that. 

“It was a quail,” Eliot insists. “They’re small birds, Hardison. They eat insects. They’re supposed to be scared of _you_.”

“It came out of nowhere,” Hardison tells him. “And I was distracted.” There’s really only so much the human mind can handle. Hardison had been exactly one dead Eliot past his breaking point, and if Eliot pushes him, he’ll say so.

Eliot never pushes him that far.

He never explains what happened next in any way that makes sense, either.

In Hardison’s memory, he yelped—screamed, maybe—and dropped his phone. (He wouldn’t remember to pick it up, and he’d have to buy a gas station burner in the morning.) Parker slammed into him, her face white and her taser crackling, and then her hands were moving rapidly over his chest and arms, searching for injury. He pulled her close and held her, rubbing circles into her back, waiting for her breathing to slow.

The wind picked up again, hard, pelting them both with grit and debris, forcing them to hold tight and close their eyes. It was like standing in the eye of their own personal tornado: All around them, trees groaned and swayed, small animals dove for their burrows, and birds shrieked alarm.

It felt like the end of the world, Hardison remembers that. He’d been too weighted with grief to even panic much. He and Parker huddled together, eyes clenched shut, and waited.

When it stopped the woods were silent. As in total silence; Hardison had thought the nature sounds were scary, but the sudden hush was worse.

Parker raised her taser again.

An owl hooted—probably an owl, Hardison wasn’t an ornithologist—and Hardison jumped, then settled into the stance Eliot had taught him.

A dark shape moved up the path. It didn’t snap a twig or disturb a leaf, and in the dim light its edges seemed to fade into the forest, making it almost invisible.

“Um, hello?” Hardison’s voice sounded far away in his ear. “Sir? You lost?”

The figure shifted, shoulders gathering in as if to fight, then stepped forward.

Eliot.


	2. Chapter 2

It was impossible.

Completely freaking impossible.

Hardison had lost his mind, was all.

Parker must have lost hers the same way, he realized a second later, because she was attacking Eliot, hugging and kissing and pulling his hair and jabbing at his chest.

Folie a deux, that was what it was called when two people shared a delusion. There was a name for it, which meant it had happened before, presumably in France. Now it was happening here.

“Parker, quit it,” said Eliot. “Stop poking me.” He dropped his eyes from Hardison’s, giving Parker a fond look, then looked back up, frowning a little.

Parker ripped Eliot’s shirt open, sending buttons flying, then started tugging at his undershirt.

“Stop that,” Eliot said. He moved like he was going to push her away, then pulled her tight against his chest instead. “Hardison, are you okay?”

“You changed your shirt,” Hardison heard himself say.

Eliot blinked at him, thrown.

“That okay?” he asked, carefully.

 _Fuck it_ , Hardison decided. _Crazy looks good to me. Crazy looks damn good._ He stepped forward. Eliot was impossibly warm and solid—and hugging him hard enough to hurt.

He buried his head against ghost-Eliot and inhaled, smelled that slightly spicy, slightly lemony smell that was just...Eliot.

That’s what tipped it.

“Hardison?” Eliot rubbed a hand roughly along the back of Hardison’s head, then grabbed him firmly by the back of his neck. “You got to breathe, can you do that? Look at me. You’re okay. Everything is okay. Deep breath, you can do it.”

When the world came back into focus, Hardison found himself sitting on the tailgate of the van, with what felt like Eliot’s hand still warm on the back of his neck, shoving his head between his knees.

“I didn’t know ghosts could do that,” Parker said.

“I ain’t a ghost,” Eliot told her. Hardison looked up. Eliot was still there.  

“I’m sorry,” Eliot said. Hardison stared. The real Eliot didn’t apologize much. He cooked or he repaired things around the pub, but he didn’t say the words.

Dying on them, though. Well. That might be different.

That might qualify as a special case.

He _should_ be sorry.

“Are you a zombie?”

Eliot looked pained. “No, Parker. I’m just me.”

“A Highlander?” Hardison says.

Eliot smiled, relieved. “You’re back.”

Like he was one to talk.

“You okay? Deep breaths. Parker, we got any water?

Parker nodded and climbed past Hardison into the van. She didn’t take her eyes off Eliot, but she gave the space where his body had been a wide berth. There was still blood on the floor mat. Not much, but there hadn’t been all that much. Eliot hadn’t been bleeding anymore when they got him in.

“How.” Hardison demanded. “How are you here.”

Eliot licked his lips. “Does it matter?”

“Hell yes, it matters. You died, E. You were dead.”

Eliot shook his head, denying it.

Hardison considered the possibility. He and Parker weren’t doctors, not by a long shot, so maybe…No. No maybe.

“You were dead,” Hardison told him. “Dead as in—as in dead, Eliot.”

Parker nodded firmly, passing Eliot a bottle of water. Eliot opened it and handed it to Hardison.

“I wasn’t,” he muttered. “I don’t do that.”

“You. Don’t. Do. That.” Hardison gestured wildly, sending water splashing. “You don’t—what? What are you…Lift up your shirt.”

“What? No.”

Parker shoved his arms away and pulled up his—clean—undershirt. She trailed her fingers down Eliot’s breastbone, and he twitched a little, like it tickled. There was no wound. No scar.

“What the hell, Eliot?”

Eliot twitched again and took a step back, pulling his shirt back down. He pulled his flannel shirt closed—and seriously, where did he get a change of clothes—and fumbled with the buttonholes, frustrated.

“I thought—I mean, I hoped…I shouldn’t have…” Eliot trailed off. His shoulders dropped. He glanced back at the woods. “I did this wrong. Maybe it was a mis—”

 “ _Whoah_ ,” Hardison was on his feet, hand around Eliot’s arm. “Jesus. Eliot, come here.”

He hugged Eliot, holding him until he felt the other man’s muscles loosen, breathing in the scent of him. Parker circled behind them anxiously, cutting off his exit.

“I love you,” he told Eliot, because he wasn’t going to waste another chance. “Don’t freak out; I needed to tell you that at least once, because I do. You’re my best friend. My family. You—I don’t know what the hell just happened, E, but it’s not a damn mistake. It’s _not_. I just need—is this real?”

“It’s real,” Eliot said.

“It’s real. You’re real?”

Eliot nodded.

“Okay. Okay. Got it. So. The hell do you mean you ‘don’t do that?’ You don’t die?”

Eliot shrugged. “No.”

“You looked dead to me,” Parker said quietly. “You felt dead. You got all stiff.”

“That was just…a shape. Not me.”

“A shape.”

Eliot shrugged again. “Think of it like an alias.”

“You’re a werewolf!” Parker grinned triumphantly. “You just needed the full moon!”

“What?” Hardison said. “That doesn’t even make sense, mama. When was he a wolf? He’s not a werewolf. You’re not a werewolf, are you?”

“It’s a quarter moon,” Eliot pointed out, rolling his eyes when Hardison glanced up to check, like keeping track of the damn moon was on his to-do list today. “And of course I’m not a werewolf.”

“Right, of course,” Hardison said, choking down a laugh, knowing he’d hyperventilate again if he gave in to it.

Eliot sighed. “You eat today?”

“Did I _eat_?” Hardison echoed.

It was maybe the most Eliot thing he could have said right then, Hardison thought, feeling the mix of joy and frustration that only Eliot elicited. Then he considered the question. Maybe Eliot was hungry. Maybe it took calories, coming back from the dead.

Shit. It probably did.

Hell, the man got shot. He probably needed to sit his ass down, take it easy, maybe spend a couple days in bed eating chicken soup or something, and they had him standing around these creepy tornado woods.

“I could eat,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, let me get this straight,” Hardison said.

Eliot glanced up from the bar menu.

“You can magic yourself back from the dead, complete with a damned change of clothes, but Parker and I have to wear sweatshirts you bought at the gas station.”

“It’s not magic,” Eliot said.

At the same time, Parker protested, “I like my sweatshirt. Someone in Tennessee loves me!”

Both men looked at her, Eliot’s mouth quirking in a fond smile. Hardison was smiling too, even as his head spun. Eliot was back. He had to be: He’d taken Hardison’s wallet into the gas station (Eliot’s wallet having vanished, which Eliot dismissed with a shrug), and the attendant had seen him, not to mention the waitress who’d handed him three menus and her phone number. Hardison was prepared to accept a folie a deux, but folie a quatre—and counting—was pushing it.

“You seem really upset about Eliot’s clothes,” Parker said. “I don’t think they’re a priority right now.”

“I am upset about his clothes, yes,” Hardison said slowly. He pointed at Eliot. “I worked hard to make that uniform, and you did nothing but complain about it, and then you ruined it by freaking _dying_ in it, Eliot, and now it’s disappeared into what, another dimension? Could you always do that? Why have I been sewing for your ass all this time? Huh? Why do you ever do _laundry_?”

“He’s in shock,” Eliot said. “Excuse me, miss?”

The waitress stopped her table prep and came over, smiling at Eliot. Even undead, the man could flirt with a glance.

“Hi,” Eliot smiled. “We need a round of whiskey, please. And…you got any real sweet drinks? Something a kid with her first fake ID would order? Two of those. Then three burgers. Two of them medium, and mine as rare as you can talk the chef into making. And fries for the table. And buffalo wings.”

Eliot didn’t usually order his burgers rare. Maybe he was a werewolf after all.

“I’m not a werewolf,” Eliot said. “Or a zombie.”

“Can you read minds?” Parker asked. “What am I thinking right now?”

“Parker, I never have a clue what you’re thinking. I was reading Hardison’s face.”

“But you can do magic,” Parker said. “Did you go to Hogwarts?”

“What?” Eliot said, growling a little. “I told you—”

Parker’s phone rang. She ignored it.

“It’s not magic,” Eliot finished, looking at the menu again.

“But you don’t die,” Parker said. “Ever?”

“Ever.”

The phone stopped.

“One round of whiskey and two blue Hawaiians,” the waitress announced cheerily, setting drinks in front of everyone. The blue drinks had curly straws and fruit on top. Parker beamed. “You folks get caught in that storm?”

Eliot nodded tightly.

Parker’s phone rang again. She ignored it again.

“Came out of nowhere,” the waitress commented. “Strangest thing. Hey, your phone’s ringing.”

Parker answered. “Hi, Nate! Everything’s fine now. You can go back to your honeymoon. Sorry to bother you. Say hi to Sophie!” She hung up.

The waitress’ eyebrows shot up. “I’ll be right back with your wings,” she said.

“You get hurt,” Parker said, barely waiting for the waitress to get out of earshot. “We’ve seen you hurt. Not just today. How can you get hurt if you can heal…all that?”

“Humans get hurt,” Eliot said, leaning forward and lowering his voice a little, not that anyone was looking at them anyway, not with a basketball game on at the bar. “This is a human body. There are rules.”

Parker’s phone rang again. “Hi, Sophie. We’re a little busy right now.”

“You’re not human?” Hardison whispered. Parker kicked him in the shin, mouthing, _wait_.

“Everything’s fine; I told Nate. And guess what, it turns out Eliot—”

Eliot waved his hands warningly, shaking his head.

“—is also completely fine and normal,” Parker finished. “He’s definitely totally a normal human. But we’re in the middle of—Yeah, he’s here.”

She passed the phone to Eliot.

“Hey, Soph. How’s the honeymoon? No. No, we’re fine. About to eat,” Eliot said, tilting the phone to catch the background noise from the bar. Apparently, Sophie needed convincing.

“What scream?” Eliot asked, all innocence. “Oh. That was just Hardison. You know how he is. Probably saw a spider. Crying? He has a cold, that’s all. I’m hoping we all get lucky and he loses his voice. No…No, it’s…Fine. Fine. Truth is, we had a little hitch with the blow-off, but it all worked out. Nothing to worry about. Yeah, hold on.”

Hardison’s turn, apparently.

“Hardison, are you three okay?” Sophie demanded. “What’s going on? Why is Eliot lying?”

Hardison swallowed. “We’re okay,” he said. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Something’s wrong,” Sophie said. “Did you get kidnapped again? Do you remember the code words?”

“We’re okay,” he said again, looking at Eliot. Parker poked him again, and he scowled, but he didn’t move his chair away. “Seriously, Sophie. It’s fine. Look, our chicken wings just came, so…”

“What was the hitch, Hardison?” Nate asked. Great. Sophie’d put them on speaker. He had to lie to both of them. He hesitated, and Eliot took the phone back.

“I told you, we’re fine. Ain’t you supposed to be honeymooning? Quit fussing,” Eliot said firmly. He hung up and looked at Hardison, turning off the phone. “Eat. And drink that thing. Fat, sugar, and protein, man. Good for shocks like this.”

“You’re not human,” Hardison said. “What are you?”

“I’m human _right now_ ,” Eliot said. “And I’m hungry. Eat.” He grabbed a buffalo wing and bit in, demonstrating.

Hardison sipped his drink a little doubtfully, then smiled as the sugar hit his tongue.

Eliot sipped his whiskey.

“You’re stalling,” Parker said. “You’re nervous.”

“No,” Eliot lied.

Parker looked at him.

“A little, maybe,” Eliot said. “This isn’t how I’d have liked to do this.”

He took a bigger sip, motioning to Hardison to do the same.

“Eliot,” Hardison said. “ _Explain_.”

“ _Eat,_ ” said Eliot. He piled chicken wings on a plate and dumped it in front of Hardison with a thud. “No questions till you’re done with that.”

Parker’s hand snaked out and stole one of the wings, almost too fast to see.

“Don’t do that, Parker,” Eliot said. “He needs time. Look at him.”

They both stared at Hardison. It was embarrassing. He took another sip through the stupid curly straw, feeling his cheeks flush.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Eliot said. A little condescendingly, Hardison thought.

“I don’t need time to adjust,” Parker said, like they weren’t supposed to notice that she was practically sitting in Eliot’s lap, touching him every two seconds to make sure he was still real. “I want to know what you are.”

“That’s because there’s something wrong with you. Hardison has a normal, modern brain. He’ll be fine in a few minutes. He can’t panic and be curious at the same time.”

“ _Some of us_ have emotional depths,” Hardison said. “Of course I can panic and ask questions at the same time.”

He could, too. But it was hard to freak out about Eliot’s death while Eliot was sitting right there getting buffalo sauce on his smug face. He took a chicken wing, then shifted his chair to the side a little and “accidentally” jostled Eliot’s leg.

Eliot kicked him back, lightly.

“We got plenty of time,” he said. “Long as you need.”

Which might actually be the best thing Eliot’s ever said, if he meant it.

And. Wait. Eliot wasn’t human, which, yeah, was pretty mind-blowing. But if this was for real, and maybe the buffalo wings were working, weird as that was, because it was starting to sink in that it _was_ real…. So. If Eliot meant it… If they could really keep him.

“Promise?” Hardison demanded.

Eliot looked at him.

“I promise,” he said, eyes soft and serious. He reached out and took their hands, right there on the table. Parker took Hardison’s other hand, completing the circle.

It was the best moment of Hardison’s life.

And the waitress reappeared, damn it, setting burgers and fries down with cheerful efficiency.

Eliot thanked her without looking away from Hardison. He didn’t let go of their hands.

“Um, let me know if you need anything else,” the waitress said, bemused. Hardison figured there might not be a ton of three-way, interracial hand-holding in this bar. It might even be a problem. He didn’t let go.

“More whiskey, when you get a chance,” Eliot said. He let go of Parker’s hand to show two fingers, then spread them wider. Parker slid her untouched whiskey toward him, and he took it gratefully. “Been a hell of a day.”

Eliot wasn’t quite as calm about this as he was pretending to be. Of course he wasn’t. Dying had to be traumatic. Or _not_ dying, if that’s what Eliot was insisting on. Getting shot in the chest, having your heart stop for hours…had he been trapped in there, all that time? Had—

“You knew Eliot was an alias, right?” Eliot said, letting go of Hardison’s hand to grab another buffalo wing.

“Of course.” Hardison took a sip of his own whiskey, pausing to let it evaporate on his tongue. “Figured you’d tell us when you were ready.”

Anticipating Eliot’s fuss, he took a bite of his burger. Not bad. Not as good as the brewpub’s, but not bad.

Eliot was studying his whiskey intently. He opened his mouth, then shut it and twirled his glass. Having trouble getting started, Hardison thought. Maybe Hardison wasn’t the only one who needed time.

“So, your dad didn’t run a hardware store, did he?” Hardison asked when the wings were gone and Eliot hadn’t spoken.

“Eliot’s dad did,” Eliot said, shrugging a little uncomfortably. He took another drink. His shoulders tightened, then dropped as his posture straightened.

“ _My_ father…,” Eliot said. When he spoke again, his cadence had changed, his tone becoming more formal. A recitation.

“My father was the north star. He knew the order of the spheres and the dance of continents, the name of every star and every bird. He was the still point at the center of it all. My mother was the all-seeing moon, whose light guided the hunt. When I was young, before the War, I steered my life by their light.”

“Okay,” Hardison said slowly. “Right. Um. How literal was that supposed to be?”

Eliot looked offended. “I don’t do metaphor,” he growled in his normal voice.

“Are you a star too, then?” Parker leaned forward. “Or…a planet?”

“No.,” said Eliot, like that should be obvious. “Look, he wasn’t just a star. She wasn’t just the moon.”

Eliot paused as if he were choosing his words carefully. Hardison waited.

And waited.

And waited some more. Maybe Eliot hadn’t done this before either.

“Can you tell us your name?” Hardison asked, gently. Names had power in magic; you couldn’t spend as much time as he had on sci-fi and fantasy without learning that. He braced himself not to be hurt when Eliot refused.

“Stalker of prey _,_ ” he said. “Death on the wind. The unseen. Lelantos.”

Lelantos. Most of that—the scary death part—didn’t sound familiar. But Lelantos. The unseen. That was ringing a very faint bell.

There was a darknet email server he’d cracked once, a few months before he had the team to keep him on task, and he’d gotten distracted looking up the name of the thing. He’d gotten briefly but enthusiastically interested in running a Greek mythology RPG, made a mental note to do a character sheet, and then been pulled down the inevitable Wikipedia rabbit hole of gods and goddesses before remembering he was supposed to be in the middle of a hack. Then he’d gotten distracted again and never circled back.

“Lelantos was a Titan,” Hardison said. “The god of—of being unobserved, the forgotten god, something like that.” Hardison couldn’t remember anything else.

He'd be circling back now.

Eliot looked gratified. “You’ve heard of me,” he said. “I didn’t exactly leave much of a mark on the records, you know. That’s kind of the point of the unseen thing.”

“There’s a…never mind.” Hardison wasn’t in the mood to explain the internet to Eliot again. To Lelantos. Whatever.

“Eliot is a god?” Parker asked, frowning.

“One of the Greek gods,” Hardison said, glancing at Eliot for confirmation.

“A Titan.” Eliot corrected firmly.

Hardison wasn’t clear on exactly what the distinction was, but if Eliot thought it was important, that was cool. Calling people what they want to be called, that was just manners.

“Okay, so. El—ah, Lelantos. Titans are a real thing, and you are one, and…you’re…here. Pretending to be human.” Hardison gestured vaguely at the bar. “Um. Why is that?”

Eliot blushed. “I lost a bet.”

Oh. That was less flattering than Hardison had hoped for, somehow.

“Anyway, long story short, I had to spend 50 years as a human. So…here I am.”

“When is the time up?” Parker asked, playing with her straw as casually as she could.

Eliot fiddled with a coaster. “About…three years ago, give or take?” he told the table.

Parker smiled. “Because you like us.”

“We were in the middle of a job,” Eliot grumbled. “It’d be unprofessional.”

Parker reached over and ruffled his hair.

“So, what else can you do?” Parker asked, leaning back and slurping at her straw loudly enough to attract a glance from one of the men at the bar. Eliot winced.

“Come on,” Parker said.

Eliot sighed.

“You can do magic, right? What can you do? Show us something.”

Eliot tapped his chest pointedly. “That not enough?”

“Of course it is,” Hardison said. “You ain’t even gotta ask. But you can’t expect us not to have questions, man. Like, can you—”

“And it ain’t magic. It’s just what I am. Like how you can raise one eyebrow, or curl your tongue. But it’s…I’m a human right now. There are rules.”

“Oh,” Parker said, nodding sagely. She looked down and traced designs in the condensation near her glass, probably discarding a dozen new plans for their next jobs.

“I’ve seen you do it before,” Hardison said before he could stop himself. Parker looked up. Eliot frowned. “During the first job, at Pierson. Man, you moved so _fast_. You took down those guards in, like, less than a second. It was maybe the hottest—the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Eliot’s mouth twitched a little. “Yeah, okay. I cheated that time. You were kind of getting under my skin a bit; it made me want to shut you up. I wasn’t supposed to see you again.”

“I knew it!” Hardison grinned. “No one could move that fast.”

“Oh, you knew it,” Eliot mocked. “Right.”

“Okay, but I should have,” Hardison said. “Wait. Wait.”

He held up a hand, thinking back. Eliot shook his head in exasperation and took a bite of his burger.

“You cheated that time. And…today,” Hardison said. Eliot nodded and took another bite. “Is that it?”

Eliot tilted his head to the side, still chewing.

“Eliot.”

Eliot looked embarrassed.

“Maybe a couple other times. Not much. Just so I wouldn’t have to go off the job. The time with the car dealership, remember? And at the carnival. And the Siberian job. But it wasn’t—it was just healing or whatever. Little stuff. Not in a _fight_.”

Parker’s hand froze on the table. “How many times have we gotten you killed?”

“Never. You never have. You didn’t today, either.” He leaned into Parker’s space, not quite forcing eye contact. “You didn’t, Parker. I fucked up. People almost always miss at that range, and the kid’s hand was shaking so bad I was worried he’d—I handled it wrong. I got sloppy. If I’d moved a little faster, we wouldn’t have to even be…I’m sorry.”

Parker nodded, a little shaky. “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” Eliot said. “Anyway, I keep telling you, I didn’t die. I don’t. I just…couldn’t fix the damage fast enough.”

He frowned and ran a hand through his hair. It was a little longer than it had been, Hardison realized. Eliot didn’t get it exactly right. Maybe that shouldn’t have been reassuring, but when you find out you’ve had an actual god bickering with you over the dirty dishes—no, when you’ve been making an actual god _do_ the dishes—you hold on to any kind of humanity you can find.

“That kid got me good. I had to start over. Took a bit.”

“Is that bad?” Hardison asked. “Are you okay? Do you need—man, what helps a Titan?”

“It’s fine. Just maybe don’t pick on my shirt.” Eliot picked up his burger again, apparently unconcerned. “I like this shirt.”

Hardison wasn’t ready to let it go. “You said there are rules. And you cheated. Is there, like, Titan Interpol?”

“Hmm? I think we’re a little outside Interpol’s jurisdiction. It’s more like…solitaire. There’s no point in doing it if you ain’t gonna do it right.”

Hardison wondered. Eliot preferred to lie by omission when he could, and that answer had a familiar feel.

“But you cheated anyway,” Parker said before he could push.

“Yeah, well. I promised you, didn’t I. And this whole human thing was finally getting—I was just starting to like being Eliot.”

Which might just tie the whole not dying thing for best things Eliot’s ever said. Hardison forgot all about rules and possible consequences, stunned. Parker’s eyes were shining.

Eliot blushed again, then scowled. “And you two idiots obviously need the help. What were you thinking back there? The kid could have come back, and I wouldn’t have been able to—you should have left me and got the hell out. Parker, I know you know better than that.”

“Shut up, Eliot,” Hardison said, glancing at Parker.

“Saved me having to pretend I needed a hospital, anyway,” Eliot conceded. “Thanks for that. But don’t do it again. If _you_ die, I can’t bring you back. Something like this happens, you run. I’ll catch up.”

“You promised us you’d keep us safe till your dying day,” Parker said. “But you don’t die. And you weren’t planning to tell us, were you. How was that supposed to work?”

Eliot flushed a deeper red. Hardison wondered why he couldn’t control that, if he was a god.

“Well. I mean. See, I was going to...I’ve been _aging_ ,” Eliot said. “Every day.”

He leaned back in his chair, waggling his eyebrows. Proud of himself.

“Good job,” Hardison said, because Eliot seemed to be waiting for it.

Eliot smiled. Hardison smothered a laugh.

“You were going to die of old age?” Parker asked. “That was the plan, El—Lelantos?”

“Eliot’s fine,” Eliot said. “And…yeah? I figured, you know, another 50, 60 years, you wouldn’t still need me. I mean, or sooner if…I don’t have to die. I can just leave, if you…if you guys ever decide you don’t want…I know things change. You’re not stuck with me, you don’t want to be.”

Hardison stared at him.

“Can you age slower? Parker asked. “We might live a really long time, and it’ll look suspicious if you’re 100 and still beating people up.”

A breeze fluttered through the bar, sending napkins flying.

“…I can do that,” Eliot said, softly.

Yep, Hardison thought. Best night of his life.


	3. Chapter 3

Hardison wouldn’t have thought things could go back to normal after something like that, but they do. For a Hardison-Parker-Eliot definition of normal, anyway.

Oh, everyone’s careful at first—Eliot tiptoes around Hardison like his mind might shatter if Eliot sneezes (while simultaneously acting like the whole _dying_ incident isn’t worth dwelling on or, you know, discussing further), Parker alternates between clinging like Velcro and disappearing for days, and Hardison buries himself in video games every night, afraid to sleep in case he wakes up and finds that Eliot’s dead and buried in an anonymous grave and he’d made the whole Titan thing up to comfort himself.

Eliot doesn’t comment on their behavior, but he spends more and more nights in the spare room, and on the mornings after the worst nights, the waiting nights, he heads right for the kitchen when he comes back from wherever it is he goes. He makes French toast or pancakes and light, fluffy frittatas, filling the apartment with the smell of home.

After a couple of weeks of that, Hardison gets careless and leaves crumbs on the couch, Parker uses the kitchen knives to trim a rope, and Eliot snaps at them both and takes off for a weekend with a beekeeper named Mildred. When he comes home with a bag of figs, some local honey, and an obnoxious bounce in his step, Parker sticks her finger in the jar and he growls at her.

That night they eat ice cream with honey-fried figs, and Hardison knows it’s real because he never imagined his life would be this good.

The next day, Parker finds them a job.

They slip into the briefing like they never took any time off at all, Parker leading them through the plan with barely suppressed glee.

“You know, this heist would be easier if one us were invisible,” she says, waggling her fingers in the jazz hands motion she’s started using whenever she refers to magic.

“I thought that was your thing,” Eliot says. “You telling me you can’t get in there?”

He waggles his hands right back. With added sarcasm.

“Of course I can,” Parker says, offended at the insinuation. And they’re off.

Later, though, Parker perches on the couch, staring at Eliot.

“What?” he finally growls. The irritation is real this time. Eliot is reviewing security protocols, and he never likes being interrupted when he’s working on their exit. Hardison looks up from his laptop.

“You don’t really look like that, do you?”

Parker pokes Eliot in the cheek.

“You’re looking at me, ain’t ya?”

“I looked you up,” Parker says.

“And?” You’d have to know him well to spot the tension. Parker and Hardison know him well.

“And Titans are giants. You aren’t a giant.”

“This used to be tall, you know. Ain’t my fault you people started growing. You two would have been freaks, till just lately.”

He doesn’t say they’re freaks _now._ Eliot hasn’t relaxed.

Hardison hasn’t either. He’d looked up Lelantos too, and he’s pretty sure he went further than Parker. There wasn’t much; All Hardison’s found are footnotes in the stories of the other gods.

They aren’t good stories.

“So you always look like that when you’re a human?”

“Close enough, yeah. It’s easier.”

“But you could look different? If you wanted.”

“…you don’t like how I look?” He sounds hurt, and he probably is—Eliot has always been a little vain—but Hardison is pretty sure Eliot’s playing that up to cover his relief. Parker isn’t taking this talk where Eliot had worried she might.

“Of course I do,” Parker say. “You’re pretty. You know that.”

Hardison gets a look at Eliot’s face and laughs out loud.

“Hardison, don’t laugh. You think he’s pretty too. You said.”

Eliot’s eyes widen.

“You don’t have to do Titan stuff if you don’t want to,” Parker says, sounding like she means it. “But it’s hard to plan jobs for three people. If you can be two people, we can do the Bismark Bingo and I won’t have to wear a dress.”

“No,” says Eliot. He goes back to exit routes.

“Because you don’t want to or you can’t?”

“Parker,” Hardison warns. They’ve talked about this.

“I just want to see him use his powers. You do too. Just _one_ thing?”

Eliot sets down his papers, then rubs his hands together. Hardison leans forward.

Eliot makes the magic hands gesture. “Bam.”

“What did you do?” Parker asks, looking around.

Eliot rolls his eyes. “I don’t really look like this, remember?”

“That doesn’t count,” Parker says. “You said it’s like curling your tongue.”

She sticks out her tongue and curls it. “Mmm mm-mmm!”

“Easy, huh? Try holding it for fifty years.”

“Mmmm-mmm mmm mmmm mmm.” Parker flounces off, tongue still curled.

Eliot shakes his head. “Hardison, where’d you get this layout?”

“Property management company. Why? Something wrong?”

Eliot frowns. “It have a date? They’re short a fire exit.” He passes Hardison the printout.

Eliot’s right. Either the company isn’t up to code or the floor plan is incomplete.

“I’ll check it,” Hardison says. “Give me five.”

Parker comes back, tongue still out, and loops her arms over their shoulders, watching Hardison work. It isn’t a hard job—he’s hacked the Portland planning commission so many times by now he’s practically worn a path through the system—but Hardison takes the time to do it neatly, showing off for his audience, then projects the corrected plans on the big screen.

“Thanks,” says Eliot, leaning into Parker’s arm as he studies.

“Hey, Eliot?” Hardison asks, quiet.

“Uh-huh?”

“Is it really like that?” he nods at Parker.

“I just wanted her to be quiet,” Eliot says. “Am I the only one trying to work?”

“But is it?”

Eliot shrugs. “Takes will, that’s all.”

“Eliot. You have to think about it all the time? How does that not drive you crazy?”

Eliot gives him a look.

“So, right now, while we’re doing this, you’re sitting there concentrating on having toes. You’ve been thinking about having toes for fifty years.”

“No! Well, sort of. But so have you. I mean, you’re younger, obviously, but same idea.”

Hardison looks at his feet.

“You just don’t realize you’re aware of them,” Eliot says. “Proprioception. It gets automatic. You ever spend time with a baby? You wonder why they love their feet so much? Or, like, you know when they figure out they can grab things on purpose?”

Parker pulls her tongue back in, distracted. “So you’re like a baby?”

“Sweetheart, I’m older than you could imagine,” Eliot says gently.

“But you think about your hands.”

Eliot grunts, looks regretfully at the floor plan, then nods to himself like he’s making up his mind about something.

“Look. I didn’t explain it right before. A body ain’t just a shape, if you hold onto it long enough. I mean it is, but…form dictates feeling. Like…I was a hawk for a while, a few years back. When I was a hawk, I was still Lelantos. But I had a hawk’s body, and a hawk’s senses, a hawk’s instincts, more or less. So I thought hawk thoughts. I had a territory I loved, and a stream where the fish swam just so close to the surface, and…Hawk feelings. That’s what made me a hawk, but it’s also what made me _that_ hawk.”

Parker nods. She’s watching Eliot closely now.

“You take a hawk and put him in another hawk’s body—even one that’s pretty close—and you got a different bird. He might like to ride the thermals a little differently, or maybe his sense of smell is different, and he starts eating squirrels and pigeons instead of fish. Maybe he turns into a city hawk, and he drops into his flight from the top of a skyscraper and never takes off into the wind at all. Maybe he loves the flare of the light against the glass and not the ripples on the river. You understand?”

“Are we the ripples on the river?” Parker asks.

Eliot shakes his head. “A human ain’t a hawk. And I’m neither. I remembered you when I was in the wind, you don’t gotta worry about that. But I never tried to put myself back just how I left before, Parker, and it…took some focus, to make myself fit back into Eliot and hold there. Don’t want to have to do it over and over again. That okay?”

“Yeah. What does it feel like to be a hawk?”

And Eliot shakes his head and turns back to his planning.

Parker doesn’t give up on Eliot’s possible powers, not entirely. The magic hands make an appearance at almost every briefing, but by the time Nate and Sophie swing through on a visit (dropping off presents, they said, but Hardison knows they’re checking up), it’s become just as much a shorthand for Hardison’s hacking or Parker’s stealing as anything Eliot might be able to do.

“Did Eliot just do jazz hands?” Sophie whispers to Hardison, leaning back against the booth at the brew pub and smiling as Eliot tells Nate about the bulldozer fight.

“That’s the part where he dropped off the girder and knocked out the guard before he could call in backup,” Hardison explains. “You know, with Eliot-fu.”

“So it’s going well, the three of you?” Sophie asks.

“We’re finding our rhythm.”

“Mmm. I can see that.”

The third job out after Eliot died, he has the kind of fight that used to have Hardison holding his breath over the comms. He wins, of course, but it’s ugly and brutal and it turns knowing Eliot can’t die isn’t as comforting as it should be.

When they get back to the office, Eliot settles onto the couch with a beer and an icepack, then looks around grumpily for the remote, which someone (all right, Hardison) had left in the kitchen. He sits halfway up, then changes his mind and drops back with a sigh.

Watching, Hardison itches with frustration.

“Quit pacing,” Eliot grunts. “Makes my head hurt.”

“But it doesn’t have to,” Hardison says. “It’s one thing if you can’t fix it, but this—this is just masochism, is what it is. Do you _like_ being hurt?”

“Sit. Down.”

Hardison sits hard enough to jostle a wince out of Eliot. “Come _on_ , E. You’re killing me. Why do you let this happen?”

“Told you. Human bodies get hurt. Fixing it’d be cheating, and I’m trying to keep a low profile here.”

“Low profile from who?”

“’Sides, you gotta have a little skin in the game, or what’s the point?”

“It hurts _me_ just looking at you. What’s the point in _that_?”

“Put a bag over your head. Then I won’t have to look at _you,_ either.”

Eliot’s bruises take a week to heal, but he wins the next few fights with suspicious speed. Hardison takes it as an apology.

They steal a Rembrandt from a Japanese billionaire and go out for sushi, then take a midnight tour of the imperial palace. _Eliot is older than this building_ , Hardison thinks, watching Parker take Eliot’s arm in the moonlit garden.

They take down a redlining property developer in Seattle and get take-out clam chowder, which they eat on the top floor of the closed downtown library. (Parker’s choice. She says it’s the closest they can get to being hawks without Hardison making funny screaming noises. Then she makes him jump down to the bottom floor anyway.)

They take down a dog fighting ring in Texas. It’s an ugly job, and they have to skip the midnight tour of whatever football stadium Eliot’s been going on about because they have a van full of dogs to transport north to a rehab and rescue group. They eat barbecue to the sound of whines and snarls from the crates. Hardison tries to focus on the look on the client’s kid’s face when he got his pet back, but he wakes with a start at three a.m. to find the van stopped and Parker and the dogs snoring softly. Eliot has his seat leaned back and is looking out the open moon roof, one hand resting on the big white dog with the pink scars, a wistful smile on his face.

“You could keep her,” Hardison whispers.

“Nah,” Eliot says. “Not this one. This one wants empty spaces and predictable meals. No more loud noises.”

“Oh,” says Hardison. “Did she tell you that?”

The dog raises her head and looks at him, then at Eliot. Eliot tips his head, and Hardison finds himself with a lap full of pit bull.

“She doesn’t like being petted,” Eliot says when Hardison moves to do just that. “She just wants to sit close a while. You mind? While I drive?”

Hardison falls asleep again to the rumble of the road and a velvet-soft muzzle pressed into the fold of his arm.

When they finally get home, Hardison’s back is aching, his nose is numb from dog smell and his ears are ringing from barking. And they still have to hose out the van and wrap up the paperwork.

“Go,” says Eliot, like he isn’t swaying with exhaustion himself. “Grab a shower, both of you. I got this.”

Hardison and Parker leave a trail of clothes to the master bedroom, then stumble into the shower together.

“I have mud _everywhere_ ,” Parker says. “It dried on.”

“I don’t think that’s all mud,” Hardison says, leaning away a bit and directing the jet at Parker.

“Yuck.”

“Do you think we should get a dog?” Hardison asks, yawning.

“You mean as a pet?” Parker asks doubtfully.

“Of course as a pet. You don’t want a pet?”

“I have you and Eliot.” And Parker pats him on the head.

“We are not pets, woman. Pass me that towel?”

“But I take care of you,” Parker says.

“Yeah,” Hardison agrees, kissing her. “You do.”

“Maybe we could,” Parker says thoughtfully as they slid into clean sheets.

Hardison’s eyes are already closing. “Could what?”

“Eliot won’t die,” Parker says solemnly. “So even if we do, it won’t be an orphan. So maybe we could.”

Hardison opens his eyes.

“Parker,” he asks carefully. “Are you still talking about getting a dog?”

“No,” says Parker.

Hardison sits up, wishing he were actually _awake_ for this conversation.

“I was thinking maybe a cat,” Parker says.

Hardison lies back down. The adrenaline drains back out of him, leaving him even more tired.

“Cats climb,” Parkers says. “And they kill mice. They’re useful.”

“Mmmm,” Hardison manages. He pictures a kitten popping out of the vents in the restaurant. “Do you think Eliot can talk to cats?”

“Everyone talks to cats,” Parker points out in her best Eliot-growl. “They’re just snooty about who they answer.”

Hardison laughs.

His sleep is heavy and dreamless, and he barely wakes when a third body slides into bed.

Then, all at once, he’s very awake.

Eliot isn’t. He smells like coconut shampoo, and his hair is still wet, dripping onto Hardison’s spare pillow (which, _thanks_ , Eliot). His eyes are half-shut, and Hardison is almost sure he doesn’t realize what he’s just done.

For a long moment, Hardison just looks at him. He’s torn between reaching out to touch Eliot’s curls and asking Eliot if he meant to be here, if he’s going to be angry in the morning. Then Parker shifts to the side, tugging Hardison with him, and he give up and makes room for Eliot as quietly as possible.

Eliot isn’t angry in the morning. Hardison feels the warm weight of Eliot’s arm jerk away from his back and he rolls over, keeping his movements slow, and gently pulls Eliot back down.

“Sorry,” Eliot whispers. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Too early for thinking,” Hardison says, even though it was probably midafternoon. “Go back to sleep.” He throws his own arm over Eliot’s back. He can feel the tension like static on Eliot’s skin, but Eliot doesn’t argue, and he doesn’t leave.

Hardison buys an extra pillow and pretends it’s for himself. Eliot doesn’t join them every night. Just once in a while after jobs, or game night sometimes if it was intense. Or movie night. Or pizza night. Not enough to be a habit, not really. Sometimes he leaves in the middle of the night. Sometimes he doesn’t.

“You used to have a scar there,” Hardison says one night, tracing his hand down Eliot’s side.

Eliot looks. Frowns. “Oops.”

He pulls his t-shirt back down, then resettles in the same pose that had made it ride up to begin with.

“Oops?” Hardison asks. “Seriously? What happened to being a different hawk?”

“A different—humans ain’t hawks, one. They got more choice in who they are.”

“What’s two?” Parker props herself up on one elbow, studying Eliot’s chest. “You said one, so you have a list.”

“I forgot that one,” Eliot says ruefully. “Oops. Did I ever tell you how I got it?”

Hardison laughs. “Eliot. You don’t get to tell stories about scars you don’t have anymore.”

“But those are the best kind,” Parker objects.

“I was crawling through this tunnel in Myanmar, and—”

Hardison kisses him.

Eliot’s eyes widen. He pulls back, looking at Parker. She nods encouragingly. “Me next.”

So yeah. Hardison’s pretty sure the new normal is working just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all the kudos and reviews. This story was originally intended to be the beginning of a larger work, but I split it for pacing reasons. The next part, if I ever finish, will be a case fic. However, that's going to be a long time coming (I write slow), and it deals with Lelantos' past, which, Greek mythology being what it is, is kind of a mess.


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